News readers check out products on-line

According to research done by Google, the on-line search giant, newspapers are still a very important component of an advertiser's reach into the public conciousness.

On an average weekday, 50 percent of U.S. adults read a newspaper and 2.3 people read each copy of a newspaper.

Readers of newspapers tend to be highly educated and more affluent than those that don't read them. These same people shop on-line more frequently too.

According to the research most readers claim that reading the paper is an important part of their daily routine and they find it relaxing.

As for shopping information, newspapers are still a key source that drives consumers to make purchases.

The research shows that 84 percent of those surveyed said they visited a retail store because of newspaper advertising and 60 percent said they visited a website to learn more about a product or service because of what they saw in a newspaper ad. And 50 percent said they bought something on-line because of the combination of the newspaper ad and web information.

Google has been teaming up with some newspaper companies to promote the idea of cross pollination of consumer mind sets in recent months. They have been basing their strategy on the fact that the consumer purchasing process has three phases; awareness of a product or service, consideration of what they want to do as a consumer and finally the intent to purchase something either to fill their needs or solve a problem that they have.